Horn tooting

Odds and Ends:– Oberlin College, BA; Columbia University, M.Phil., Ph.D.;
– Graduate fiction courses at the University of Virginia with George Garrett, John Casey and Alan Cheuse;
– Apprentice underground coal-mining papers in West Virginia;
– Virginia Class-A residential contractor’s license;
– Voted second funniest by high-school classmates;
– Intentionally flunked graduate course at the UMASS School of Education, “Survival Techniques in the Educational Bureaucracy”—an accurate predictor;
– “Fire in the Hole: Miners and Managers in the American Coal Industry” (University Press of Kentucky, 1985). “Your ‘Fire in the Hole’ was an essential part of my education when I started working here many years ago, and it remains a reference on my shelf.” “…your book …has been a huge help over the years to me.” (Emails: 12/1/17; 10/5/18 from Ken Ward, Jr., 2018 MacArthur Fellow, reporter for “The Charleston Gazette.”

Since 1983, produced:
– More than 550,000 pounds of grass-fed beef;
– More than one million bf of hardwood sawtimber and veneer;
– Three stands of planted black walnut trees (700);
– Seven non-fiction books;
– 400 “Country Real Estate” columns, self-syndicated;
– 125 land-related columns for magazines and online sites;
– Speeches for unsuccessful candidates in the 1984 and 1988 Democratic presidential primaries;
– More than 75 legally binding arbitration awards;
– 1st column award from the Virginia Press Association;
– Land consultancy involved with more than $10 million in buys;
– Commentaries on WVTF, public radio in Roanoke.